News Archive 2010

In reverse chronological order

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The very best of wishes to all our readers from everyone here at Scopitones, the home of Cinerama and The Wedding Present.

SNOW DISRUPTS END OF TOUR

The Wedding Present have had to cancel the last two concerts of their 'Bizarro' 2010 Tour of Europe due to extreme weather conditions in the United Kingdom. The band were justifiably proud of the fact that they had made it through the snow and ice to all of their British and Irish dates and so were bitterly disappointed when their flights to Turkey were cancelled by British Airways. It is hoped that the affected concerts in Istanbul and Athens can be rescheduled for some time next year and we would like to apologise for any inconvenience that this might have caused.

BBC 6MUSIC SESSION

The Wedding Present took a day off - in the middle of their ongoing 'Bizarro' tour - to visit an old friend recently. On Tuesday 7 December the band visited the Manchester studios of BBC 6Music to record four numbers for Marc Riley's radio programme. The tracks performed were two brand new 'Gedge/Ramsay' songs... 'You Jane' and 'Mystery Date'... old favourite 'Brassneck' and also the band's cover of 'Where Everybody Knows Your Name' - more well known as the the theme tune to the TV programme 'Cheers'. Inhabitants of the UK can listen to the programme again here via the BBC's iPlayer.

AT THE EDGE OF THE SEA 2011

We are pleased to announce that 'At The Edge Of The Sea' - the one-day indoor festival curated by David Gedge and headlined by The Wedding Present - will return next year on the bank holiday weekend of Saturday 27 August. The event will once again take place between 3PM and 10PM at the historic 'Concorde 2' venue which is situated on the seafront at Brighton, on the sunny south coast of England. This year the event sold out and was a huge success. Click here to see some pictures. Brilliant performances were enjoyed from the likes of CINERAMA, DARREN HAYMAN from Hefner [pictured above with David], THE UKRAINIANS, KLEE from Cologne, PERSIL from Amsterdam, SHARKS, Brighton's very own HALF SISTERS and ex-Wedding Present members TERRY DE CASTRO and PAUL DORRINGTON.

Two bands have already confirmed that will be playing along with Cinerama and The Wedding Present at the festival next year. These are SILVERMASH [“Shoe-gazey indie-grungers” from Eastern Scotland featuring The Wedding Present’s Graeme Ramsay] and DIRTY FINGERNAILS ["90s alt-rock inspired" North London quartet featuring The Wedding Present's Charles Layton].

Once again a limited number of 'early-bird' tickets have been made available at the reduced price of £15. Click here to purchase one.

DAVID'S WORDS

David Gedge is interviewed by writer Mark Hodkinson for a feature published in the December issue of the British based 'Word' Magazine, which is out now. Mark wrote a book about The Wedding Present in 1989 and so this was an opportunity to renew old acquaintances.

WEDDING PRESENT RADIO APPEARANCES

The Wedding Present have been visiting various radio stations during the band's current European tour, including Detektor.fm in Leipzig, Germany [where an interview was recorded for immediate transmission and a song was performed semi-acoustically for the station to use in December], RAI in Milan, Italy and BBC Radio Solent in Southampton, England. Acoustic songs were performed at both of these latter two stations. The band will also be playing live on BBC 6Music at 7PM on December 7th. Click on the red words for more info!

PRIMITIVES ADDED TO LONDON BILL

We are extremely pleased to announce that The Primitives have been added to the bill for The Wedding Present's concert at Koko in London on 13 December. The Primitives recently reformed after a lengthy break and remain one of David Gedge's favourite bands. Please note that The Jet Age will still be playing on this night but are now the first of three bands of this exciting line-up, so come early!

For full details of all the concerts on The Wedding Present's 'Bizarro' tour of The United Kingdom, Ireland and Continental Europe, please click here.

NEW LIVE WEDDING PRESENT ALBUM

Scopitones will release a double album of live Wedding Present recordings from 1989 on 18 October 2010. This release will be available on CD and by download. 'LIVE 1989' collects the fifth and sixth of The Wedding Present's infamous 'live tapes'; cassettes that the band sold at gigs and through their fanzine in the late 80s. The recordings were unavailable anywhere else. Fans eagerly collected them and they became very rare.

This is the third in the series of these much-demanded, re-mastered recordings. 'Live 1987' was released in 2007 and 'Live 1988' was released earlier this year, both to popular acclaim. 'Live 1989' is especially interesting because it includes some early versions of tracks that went on to appear on the band's major label debut, 'Bizarro'. This year the band are celebrating the 21st Anniversary of the release of Bizarro by playing the album live. One of the discs also features The Wedding Present in 'Ukrainian' style, as they perform their versions of Ukrainian folk music.

Here at Scopitones we have decided not to sell the CD by mail-order from our web site for the moment and ask you to please support your local record shop and buy a copy there instead.

AT THE EDGE OF THE SEA 2010

A big thank you from Scopitones to everyone who came along to this year's 'At The Edge Of The Sea' Mini-Festival and helped make it into the success it was. Once again we were rewarded with fine weather and outstanding performances from all the bands, story-tellers and our DJ, Rocker.

See you all next year!

[Left] Wedding Present rhythm section and tour diarists Terry de Castro and Charles Layton, following a dip in the English Channel after the concert.

FROM DE CASTRO TO LE MOKO FOR BIZARRO

Wedding Present bass player Terry de Castro has decided that she will not be able to take part in the band's forthcoming extensive 'Bizarro' tour of the U.K., Ireland and Continental Europe which starts on October 13th.

Terry, who joined David Gedge's 'other' band, Cinerama for their first ever performance in July 1998 and has subsequently appeared at over five hundred Cinerama and Wedding Present concerts, is the bass player and backing vocalist on the 'Disco Volante', 'Torino', 'Take Fountain' and 'El Rey' albums.

Following The Wedding Present's 'At The Edge Of The Sea' mini-festival on August 28th., Terry will return to California, where she intends to begin work on her second solo record and continue her job as writer for a music web site. She says that she is grateful for the kind words she has received from Wedding Present fans and friends over the last few weeks and adds: 'I'm going to be really sad to leave but it was time to take a break from touring. I can't think of a more amazing way to have spent the last twelve years and it's a real privilege to be part of the extended TWP family tree.'

Her place in the tour-bus will be taken by Pepe le Moko who hails from Switzerland and has already stood in for Terry at a recent festival in Spain.

In other 'stand-in' news, Alex White, the drummer from Brakes and founder member of Electric Soft Parade recently performed at a couple of Wedding Present concerts in Tunbridge Wells, England and Hannover, Germany in place of the band's regular drummer, Charles Layton, who was unable to appear due to other commitments.

NEW BRITISH DATES ADDED

The Wedding Present are bookending their forthcoming 'Bizarro' Tour of the U.K. and Ireland with extra concerts in Yorkshire and the Midlands. The tour will now start at Sheffield Leadmill on 18 November and end at Leamington Spa Assembly on 15 December. Please click here to see all the band's confirmed tour dates.

AUGUST FESTIVAL FRENZY

This August, The Wedding Present will be playing their album 'Bizarro' live at festivals and associated warm-up concerts in Europe and the USA. The series of concerts begins at the 'Vertigo' Festival in Spain on the 7th and culminates with the band's own one-day indoor festival 'At The Edge Of The Sea' in Brighton, England on the 28th. In between they will be playing in Harrisburg [Pennsylvania], Athens [Georgia] and New York City in the USA, Tunbridge Wells and Holmfirth in England and at the Boot Boo Hook Festival in Hannover, Germany.

Please click here to visit our 'concerts' page where you will find more information on all these appearances.

NEW MERCHANDISE ITEMS ON SALE

Since this is the year of 'Bizarro Live' we are pleased to announce two Bizarro connected new arrivals to the merchandise pages of our web site. Firstly [pictured left] is a fabulous new T-shirt which has the classic Bizarro design on the front and 'The Wedding Present' on the back.

The sizes are XL, L, M & S for men and L & M for women and the price is the usual £13-50 plus postage and packing. More sizes [e.g. XXL and children's sizes] should be available soon. Please click here for more details.

Secondly, the recently released Wedding Present double CD 'Live 1988' is now also available for purchase for £8 plus p&p by mail order, and you can do so by clicking here.

Here's what we said about 'Live 1988' when it was released back in March :

"Scopitones will release a double album of live Wedding Present recordings from 1988 on 29 March 2010.

This release will be available on CD and by download. ‘LIVE 1988' collects the third and fourth of The Wedding Present’s infamous ‘live tapes’; cassettes that the band sold at gigs and through their fanzine in the late 80s. The recordings were unavailable anywhere else. Fans eagerly collected them and they became very rare.

This is the second in the series of these much-demanded, re-mastered recordings. ‘Live 1987' was released in 2007 to popular acclaim. ‘Live 1988' is especially interesting because it includes some early versions of tracks that went on to appear on their major label debut, ‘Bizarro’. This year the band are celebrating the 21st Anniversary of the release of Bizarro by playing the album live.

‘Live 1988' – Track-listing :

CD1 : Live In Rotterdam – 1. Introduction [Spoken In Dutch!] 2. You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends 3. Never Said 4. What Did Your Last Servant Die Of? 5. Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft 6. Not From Where I’m Standing 7. This Boy Can Wait 8. A Million Miles 9. Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now? 10. Don’t Be So Hard 11. Nothing Comes Easy 12. Anyone Can Make A Mistake 13. I’m Not Always So Stupid 14. Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm

CD2 : Live In Valencia – 1. Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now? 2. This Boy Can Wait 3. Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft 4. Kennedy 5. What Did Your Last Servant Die Of? 6. No 7. Anyone Can Make A Mistake 8. Give My Love To Kevin 9. Be Honest 10. I’m Not Always So Stupid 11. Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm 12. Take Me!"

WEDDING PRESENT TOUR DIARY UPDATED

The Wedding Present have now returned to their homes in England, Scotland and California for a short break in the ‘Summer Festivals’ leg of their ‘Bizarro 21st Anniversary’ Tour.

This has given us here at Scopitones a chance to update the Wedding Present tour diary. Click here to see what fantastic adventures they have been having over the last couple of weeks.

The band’s next batch of concerts will be in Spain and the U.S.A. later this month. Please click here for more details.

FALL OUT BOY'S FAVOURITE DRESS

Patrick Stump, the singer from Chicago band Fall Out Boy has covered The Wedding Present's 'My Favourite Dress' for The Onion's A. V. Club project. Earlier in the series The Wedding Present recorded a version of the Rolling Stones song '19th Nervous Breakdown'.

Click here to see 'My Favourite Dress' performed by Patrick and here to see '19th Nervous Breakdown' performed by The Wedding Present.

ALL ARTISTES NOW CONFIRMED FOR AT THE EDGE OF THE SEA

We are pleased to announce that all the artistes appearing at 'At The Edge Of The Sea' [David Gedge's one day festival on England's sunny south coast] have now been confirmed. The event takes place from 3PM until 10PM on Saturday 28 August 2010 at Brighton's historic Concorde 2 venue on the seafront. The day will commence with an acoustic set from David Gedge's "other" band, Cinerama and end with The Wedding Present playing their album 'Bizarro' live. Inbetween there will be appearances from many bands with Wedding Present connections including The Ukrainians, Klee [pictured left], Sharks and Persil.

In addition to this we are also looking forward to readings of Wedding Present and Cinerama themed short stories specially written for the day by Short Fuse and DJ sets by the legendary Rocker from Dandelion Radio.

The venue is not particularly near any restaurants [though there is a cafe nearby] but it is right on the beach... so bring a picnic! [Tickets on sale here]

BUY DAVID GEDGE'S GUITAR

David Gedge is selling one of his Ibanez guitars on eBay. He bought this particular guitar in 1983 and has used it at over a thousand concerts in Europe, North America and Asia and on every Wedding Present and Cinerama album since! To see a video of David playing this very guitar in the 'You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends' video in 1987 click here. To make a bid click here.

BIZARRO LIVE 21 : THE BRITISH & IRISH DATES

The Wedding Present have announced the British and Irish legs of their 'Bizarro' Tour... concerts at which they will be playing their major label debut in its entirety.The tour will start at Bournemouth in Dorset on November 19th and finish 3,000 miles later in Camden, London, on December 13th.

For a full list of all confirmed concerts, please click here. Be there or... well, don't be there.

THE WEDDING PRESENT RETURN TO NEW YORK

The Wedding Present are pleased to announce that they will be performing their album 'Bizarro' live at the Seaport Music Festival in New York City on Friday 13 August. This is a free festival which is now in its ninth year.

THE WEDDING PRESENT COVER THE ROLLING STONES

Click here to see The Wedding Present perform a version of "19th Nervous Breakdown". The band dropped in at The Onion Magazine's "A.V. Club" offices to record this en route to the Chicago date of their recent North American tour.

MORE FESTIVAL APPEARANCES FOR BIZARRO

The Wedding Present have confirmed three more summer dates at which they will be playing their album 'Bizarro' live. The first two are in the USA at The Abbey Bar of the Appalachian Brewing Company in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on August 11th and 'Popfest' in Athens, Georgia on August 12th. Then, on September 11th the band will be appearing at the Berlin Festival in Germany. The Wedding Present last played at the Berlin Festival in 2005. For a list of all of the band's forthcoming concerts, please click here.

'BIZARRO' TOUR : NEWS UPDATE

The Wedding Present have now returned to their homes in England, Scotland and California following the completion of the first leg of their 'Bizarro 21st Anniversary' Tour. During the series of concerts, which took place in Japan, Croatia, Canada and the USA during April and May 2010, the band played their major label debut album 'Bizarro' live, in its entirety.

The reaction to the concerts so far has been amazing and the band would like to apologise to those people who failed to get tickets to the sold out shows in New York, New Jersey and San Francisco.

To read Wedding Present bass player Terry de Castro's tour diary and see photographs from the tour, please click here.

The second phase of the tour will commence at festivals in England, Spain, Germany and the USA over the summer while the finale will see The Wedding Present performing 'Bizarro' live across Continental Europe, Ireland and the United Kingdom towards the end of the year. To view full details of all forthcoming concerts please visit our 'concerts' page by clicking here.

THE BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS / THE FARADAY FESTIVAL

The Bloodthirsty Butchers [pictured left] have been announced as the surprise special extra support band for The Wedding Present's 'Bizarro' concert in Tokyo on May 7th., where they will join the previously announced Qomolangma Tomato on the three band bill. Click on either band name to visit their site. Meanwhile, we are pleased to announce that the debut live European performance of 'Bizarro' will take place on July 2nd at the Faraday Festival in Vilanova i la Geltrú, near Barcelona in Spain.

KEXP SESSION

During The Wedding Present's recent tour of North America the band dropped by the studios of Seattle radio station KEXP to record a session which included performances of a couple of new songs ['Deer Caught In The Headlights' and 'You're Dead']. You can listen to the session by clicking here and watch video of it by clicking here.

DAVID GEDGE EDITS MAGNET

David Gedge was a recent guest editor of the 'Magnet' web site in the USA. He listed and discussed some of his favourite things and there's an interview with him, too.

Click here to visit the site and then enter 'David Gedge' into the 'Search for' box on the left hand side.

TERRY DE CASTRO'S TOUR DIARY

Throughout 2010's 'Bizarro' concert tour of North America, Wedding Present bass player and diarist Terry de Castro will be uploading frequent entries to her new tour diary page on this very web site.

NEW LIVE WEDDING PRESENT ALBUM

Scopitones will release a double album of live Wedding Present recordings from 1988 on 29 March 2010.

This release will be available on CD and by download. 'LIVE 1988' collects the third and fourth of The Wedding Present's infamous 'live tapes'; cassettes that the band sold at gigs and through their fanzine in the late 80s. The recordings were unavailable anywhere else. Fans eagerly collected them and they became very rare.

This is the second in the series of these much-demanded, re-mastered recordings. 'Live 1987' was released in 2007 to popular acclaim. 'Live 1988' is especially interesting because it includes some early versions of tracks that went on to appear on their major label debut, 'Bizarro'. This year the band are celebrating the 21st Anniversary of the release of Bizarro by playing the album live.

Here at Scopitones we have decided not to sell the CD by mail-order from our web site for the moment and ask you to please support your local record shop and buy a copy there instead.

'Live 1988' - Track-listing :

CD1 : Live In Rotterdam - 1. Introduction [Spoken In Dutch!] 2. You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends 3. Never Said 4. What Did Your Last Servant Die Of? 5. Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft 6. Not From Where I'm Standing 7. This Boy Can Wait 8. A Million Miles 9. Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now? 10. Don't Be So Hard 11. Nothing Comes Easy 12. Anyone Can Make A Mistake 13. I'm Not Always So Stupid 14. Nobody's Twisting Your Arm

CD2 : Live In Valencia - 1. Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now? 2. This Boy Can Wait 3. Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft 4. Kennedy 5. What Did Your Last Servant Die Of? 6. No 7. Anyone Can Make A Mistake 8. Give My Love To Kevin 9. Be Honest 10. I'm Not Always So Stupid 11. Nobody's Twisting Your Arm 12. Take Me!

'BIZARRO' TOUR : NEWS UPDATE

It's now just one month until The Wedding Present's North American tour kicks off with the historic first ever live performance of 'Bizarro' in San Diego on April 1st., 2010.

We thought that this would be a good opportunity to post a news bulletin with updates on some of these shows, but further details of all the concerts can be found by clicking here.

NORTH AMERICA / APRIL

Tickets are selling fast for the North American leg and Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey has already sold out. In other news: 'Girl In A Coma' are unfortunately now unable to support The Wedding Present in San Francisco but Mister Loveless and Surf Cinema have both kindly stepped in!

JAPAN / MAY

Surprise special guests have been added to the bill for The Wedding Present's concert at O'West in Tokyo on May 7th. Meanwhile, Wedding Present bass player Terry de Castro will be performing a solo concert at the Shibuya '7th Floor' in Tokyo on May 8th. at which David Gedge will also be DJ-ing.

GERMANY / AUGUST

The Wedding Present's appearance at the Boot Boo Hook Festival near Hanover has now been definitely confirmed for August 20th.

THE UK / AUGUST

The Wedding Present have announced that they will be playing at Tunbridge Wells Forum on August 18th. Meanwhile, Cinerama will support The Wedding Present in Holmfirth on the 26th.

'Short Fuse' have been added to 'At The Edge Of The Sea' - the one day Brighton mini-festival curated by David Gedge on August 28th. Short Fuse is a live literary cabaret group which puts on themed nights of new short fiction. Since it began in Brighton in 2007, it has attracted a cult following and a reputation for bringing some of the most shocking, surprising, boundary shaking and moving short fiction to local audiences. For 'At The Edge Of The Sea,' Short Fuse are gathering some of their best writers to perform stories based on David Gedge song titles.

OTHER APPEARANCES [click on the red words to go to the external site]

As is usual on a North American tour, The Wedding Present have been inundated with invitations to perform at radio stations and in record stores. At this time, the following events have been confirmed :

April 7th - while in Georgia, the band will be playing in the Criminal Records record store at 1154, Euclid Avenue NE, Atlanta, at 5PM.

April 11th - while in New York, David [and possibly other band members] will be guests on 'Atlantic Tunnel' which is broadcast on East Village Radio between noon and 2PM [Eastern Time]. East Village Radio broadcasts live from a store-front DJ booth in NYC's East Village. Acoustic performances have been mentioned...

April 16th - while in Illinois, the band will have their yet-to-be-worked-out version of The Rolling Stones' '19th Nervous Breakdown' filmed by AVClub.com, the arts-and-entertainment branch of The Onion. AVClub say: "We won't know for sure when it will air until closer, but sometime in early May is most likely".

April 21st - while in Washington [the state, not the city], the band will be recording a session for KEXP [a public radio station based in Seattle (where David Gedge lived for 18 months)]. This session will be transmitted live, live, live at 4PM [Pacific Time].

EARLY CONFIRMATIONS FOR BRIGHTON FESTIVAL

There have been some early additions to the bill of 'At The Edge Of The Sea' the annual one-day festival curated by David Gedge. As reported earlier, The Wedding Present will end the night with a live performance of their second album 'Bizarro'... but we can now also confirm that Cinerama, David Gedge's 'other' band, will open the proceedings shortly after 3PM, as they did last year. We are also pleased to announce that the festival will also feature a set from Sharks [who have been known to cover The Wedding Present's 'Brassneck' at concerts] and Dandelion Radio DJ Rocker. Please click here to visit our 'concerts' page.

FESTIVAL WARM-UPS

The Wedding Present have announced two festival warm-up concerts in England for this summer. They will play at Wolverhampton Slade Rooms on 16 July and Holmfirth Picturedrome on 26 August. For further details of all forthcoming Wedding Present concerts please click here.

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR SUPPORTS ANNOUNCED

The Wedding Present have announced the three bands that will support them on their forthcoming tour of the United States and Canada. They are Ringo Death Starr [April 1-5], The Jet Age [April 7-10] and Girl In A Coma [April 11-24].

And, if you click on the band name above, you will be taken, as if by magic, to that band's myspace page...

THE WEDDING PRESENT RETURN TO NORTH AMERICA

The Wedding Present have announced details of their first North American tour since 2008.

For details of the concerts, at which the band will play their classic major label debut album, Bizarro, in its entirety, please visit the tours page of this web site.

THE WEDDING PRESENT TO PLAY DEBUT YORKSHIRE FESTIVAL

The Wedding Present are pleased to announce that they will be headlining the first ever 'Deer Shed' Music & Arts Festival which takes place in Baldersby Park near the village of Topcliffe in North Yorkshire on Saturday 17 July 2010. The festival is described as 'one day and night of the best in contemporary music and art' set in beautiful North Yorkshire parkland. You can visit the festival web site by clicking here.

LIVE CONCERT DOWNLOAD ALBUMS RELEASED

We are pleased to announce that two concert recordings are being released for download only this January by Scopitones.

OUT NOW : LIVE IN NEW YORK - featuring a Cinerama concert in the USA from 28 June 2003. This album was mixed by Steve Fisk, who also recorded The Wedding Present's 'Watusi' and 'Take Fountain' albums and has the following track-listing:

The One That Got Away / Quick, Before It Melts / Apres Ski / You Turn Me On / Loveslave / And When She Was Bad / On - Off / Dalliance / Starry Eyed / I'm From Further North Than You / Superman / Careless / Perfect Blue / Your Charms / Don't Touch That Dial

OUT ON 18 JANUARY 2010 : LIVE IN LEEDS - featuring a Wedding Present concert in the UK from 06 June 2006. This album was mixed by Christopher McConville who was The Wedding Present's guitarist from 2006 to 2009 and has the following track-listing: